1. Put duck on a chopping board, breast side up. With a sharp carving knife, cut wings away by slicing through joint where it meets body.
2. To remove legs, cut through skin between leg and body. Pull to lift thigh and drumstick in one piece, releasing joint from body with knife.
3. To remove breasts, slice down middle of body, along one side of breast bone. Use a carving fork to steady bird. The knife will hit breast bone, turn it at a slight angle away from body, and use sweeping cuts to ease breast meat away. Carefully cut around leg joint to release breast meat. Repeat on opposite side of breast bone to remove other breast.
4. Remove skin from breast meat, if desired, and carve meat diagonally into roughly 1cm thick slices.
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ProChef’s knife, Pro meat fork, Zwilling J.A. Henckels. White ceramic bistro plate, Sophie Conrad. Oak chopping board, Lakeland.
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).
